RSC 2021/07
Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies
Global Governance Programme-431
GLOBALCIT
Unblocking access to citizenship in the global South:
Should the process be decentralised?
European University Institute
Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies
Global Governance Programme
GLOBALCIT
Unblocking access to citizenship in the global South:
Should the process be decentralised?
Edited by Bronwen Manby and Rainer Bauböck
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ISSN 1028-3625
© Edited by Bronwen Manby and Rainer Bauböck, 2021
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Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies
The Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, created in 1992 and currently directed by Professor Brigid Laffan, aims to develop inter-disciplinary and comparative research on the major issues facing the process of European integration, European societies and Europe’s place in 21st century global politics.
The Centre is home to a large post-doctoral programme and hosts major research programmes, projects and data sets, in addition to a range of working groups and ad hoc initiatives. The research agenda is organised around a set of core themes and is continuously evolving, reflecting the changing agenda of European integration, the expanding membership of the European Union, developments in Europe’s neighbourhood and the wider world.
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information, visit our website at http://globalcit.eu Series editors:
Rainer Bauböck (European University Institute and Austrian Academy of Sciences ) Jelena Džankić (European University Institute)
Iseult Honohan (University College Dublin, School of Politics and International Relations) Jo Shaw (University of Edinburgh, Law School)
Maarten Vink (European University Institute)
The views expressed in this publication cannot in any circumstance be regarded as the official position of the European Union.
Abstract
Why is naturalisation so rare in countries of the global South, and how could access be made easier? More than one third of global migration is into low and middle income countries; three-quarters of the global refugee population is hosted by countries in Africa, Asia, or Latin America and the Caribbean. Yet few migrants and refugees in poor or middle-income countries ever get the opportunity to change their nationality and become citizens of the states where they settle. This working paper compiles contributions to a GLOBALCIT Forum debate launched by Bronwen Manby with a proposal that the problem of lack of access to naturalisation should be addressed by developing local responses rather than national ones. The Forum was co-edited by Bronwen Manby and Rainer Bauböck, and brought responses from fifteen authors considering the viability of the proposal in relation to countries in Africa, Latin America, and South and East Asia. It concludes with reflections from both editors on the critiques of the original proposal.
Keywords
Table of Contents
Kick-off contribution. Unblocking access to citizenship in the global South: Should the process be decentralised?
Bronwen Manby ... 1 Unblocking access to citizenship in South America: policy-makers, courts and other actors
Diego Acosta ... 6 More citizenship, more inequities? Lessons from localised U.S. naturalisation
Irene Bloemraad ... 10 Decentralise the procedure but not the law? Cautionary lessons from Switzerland’s multilevel
citizenship
Barbara von Ruette ... 15 Unblocking access to citizenship in China: Is decentralisation even possible?
Sanzhuan Guo ... 19 Is the devolution of naturalisation sufficient to address the persistent challenges of citizenship in the global South? Cautionary lessons from India and South Africa
Sujata Ramachandran ... 24 How meso-level institutions and civil society mediate access to citizenship in East Asia
Erin Aeran Chung ... 29 Re-centring political equality as a good of citizenship: a response to proposals to decentralise the naturalisation process
Christine Hobden ... 33 Decentralisation of citizenship in Côte d’Ivoire requires first building trust
Alfred Babo ... 37 Access to legal identity and to nationality: Why inclusive procedures depend on political will
Luicy Pedroza ... 42 Two pathways to citizenship in Mexico
Imke Harbers ... 46 If (decentralised) naturalisation is the answer, what is the question?
Amal de Chickera ... 51 The trouble with decentralising citizenship in Ethiopia’s ethnic federation
Yonatan T. Fessha ... 55 Quasi-citizenship as a potential alternative to naturalisation in the Arab World
Lillian Frost ... 59 Should Senegalese local authorities get competences to naturalise foreigners?
Ibrahima Kane ... 63 Promises and pitfalls of decentralised naturalisation
Rainer Bauböck ... 68 Why and where local naturalisation may work – a rejoinder
1
Kick-off contribution
Unblocking access to citizenship in the global South: Should the process be
decentralised?
Bronwen Manby
*
More than one third of global migration1 has low and middle income countries as the destination; three-quarters of the global refugee population2 is hosted countries in Africa, Asia or Latin America and the Caribbean. Yet few migrants and refugees hosted by poor or middle-income countries ever get the opportunity to change their nationality and become citizens of the states where they settle. I propose that the problem of lack of access to citizenship should be addressed by developing local responses rather than national ones.
The right to change nationality
Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights establishes three elements of the right to a nationality in international law: the right to a nationality itself; the right not to be arbitrarily deprived of nationality; and the right to change nationality. The first element gets attention from those interested in the conundrum of statelessness, in membership and belonging; the second from those concerned about discrimination, due process, and the rule of law; but the third element is comparatively neglected by the policy and scholarly communities.
What does the right to change nationality mean? At the minimum legalistic level it requires that a person should have the right to renounce a birth nationality (provided that they can show that they have or will immediately acquire another nationality). But for the right to be real a person must also have the right to acquire nationality in another country than their country of birth, based on their strong connections there. In practice this is often not available.
The percentage of settled immigrants with host country citizenship reaches 90 percent in Canada, 81 percent in Australia, 62 percent in the US, and an average of 59 percent across the European Union3 (though with much variation4). In Africa and Asia we have no such statistics: but it is clear that naturalisation is often almost completely inaccessible, especially to those who most need it. Among African states5, Nigeria – population estimated at 200 million – grants no more than a couple of hundred people citizenship each year (among them a substantial number who are the wives of Nigerians; gender discrimination applies in acquisition by spouses). South Africa, which until around 2010 naturalised ten thousand or more each year, has decided that naturalisation should be ‘exceptional’6 and reduced the
* London School of Economics and Political Science; regional GLOBALCIT coordinator for Africa.
1 ‘International migrant stock 2019’ United Nations Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs.’ https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/data/estimates2/estimates19.asp.
2 ‘Global Trends - Forced Displacement in 2018 .’ UNHCR , 20 June 2019, https://www.unhcr.org/globaltrends2018/. 3 ‘Settling in 2018 – Main Indicators of Immigration Integration.’ OECD and European Commission, 2018,
http://www.oecd.org/els/mig/Main-Indicators-of-Immigrant-Integration.pdf.
4 Huddleston, T. (2020), ‘Naturalisation in context: how nationality laws and procedures shape immigrants’ interest and ability to acquire nationality in six European countries’, Comparative Migration Studies 8(28): 1-20.
5
Manby, B. (2016), ‘Citizenship Law in Africa: A Comparative Study’, Open Society Foundations.
6 ‘White Paper on International Migration for South Africa’, (2017), Department of Home Affairs, p. 26. http://www.dha.gov.za/WhitePaperonInternationalMigration-20170602.pdf.
Bronwen Manby
numbers to a few hundred. The statistics that can be gleaned from other African countries indicate that the numbers are everywhere low, sometimes in single figures each year, or zero.
The naturalisation provisions in the laws of post-colonial states largely mirror those of the colonisers, with minor variations adopted since independence 7– usually to make citizenship harder to acquire, by lengthening the residence period or creating stronger requirements of cultural assimilation. The list of conditions for naturalisation is, however, largely irrelevant. The key point about these rules is that they are based on assumptions that all those migrating from one country to another have identity documents confirming the nationality of their country of origin, a currently valid travel document, official permission to be in the country, proof of legal residence over the necessary period, and a fee of at least several hundred dollars (US$ 5,000 in the case of Tanzania8). This is obviously moonshine for most migrants in poorer countries. Moreover, naturalisation is everywhere completely discretionary in law, and often perceived as being a personal favour given by the president. Scandals over corruption in naturalisation have convulsed the media in South Africa (the Gupta brothers naturalised by President Jacob Zuma) and Comoros (the scheme to sell ‘economic citizenship’ to be imposed on more than 40,000 stateless bidoon from the United Arab Emirates9); and disquiet at abuse of naturalisation powers arises from time to time in many states.10
The increased importance of naturalisation if birth in the territory gives no rights
Access to naturalisation is less important in states where the law provides for automatic attribution of nationality based on birth in the territory – whether for the first or second generation born in the country – and the procedural arrangements ensure that this right is respected in practice (which is far from given). In francophone West Africa11 for example, all states – apart from Côte d’Ivoire – provide that the second generation born in the country are automatically attributed nationality at birth; tribunals have the power to issue a certificate of nationality confirming this status, including late registration of birth as a prior step to recognition of nationality. Unlike the countries of the Americas that provide ius soli attribution of citizenship at birth, the interim generation may still face problems in claiming nationality either of the country of the parents or of birth, but a family can change its affiliation over time; and this right is guaranteed by the courts, not dependent on executive goodwill.
In those states where there are no rights based on birth in the territory – or the right in law is not respected in practice – access to naturalisation is critical to enable change of nationality. It is also critical to avoid statelessness, as the second and third generations born in a territory lose any connection to a notional state ‘of origin’, and above all any hope of proving that connection in practice. Yet so long as existing procedures remain in place it is hard to see how naturalisation would ever be scaled to the level at which it would address the needs of the very large numbers of Africans who have no documents confirming citizenship of any state, and no possibility of satisfying the legal requirements, because they lack the necessary documents and money.
7
Manby, B. (2018). Citizenship in Africa: The Law of Belonging. Hart Publishing, www.bloomsburyprofessional.com/uk/citizenship-in-africa-9781509920778/.
8
Manby, B. (2018), ‘Statelessness and Citizenship in the East African Community’, UNHCR. https://data2.unhcr.org/en/documents/details/66807
9 ‘Comores: Rapport de la Commission d'enquête parlementaire sur la Loi relative à la citoyenneté économique.’ Parlement des Comores, December 2017, available at
http://citizenshiprightsafrica.org/comores-rapport-de-la-commission-denquete-parlementaire-sur-la-loi-relative-a-la-citoyennete-economique/.
10
‘Angolanos Indignados Com Proposta De Mudanças Na Lei Da Nacionalidade.’ Deutsche Welle, 7 October 2014, available at http://citizenshiprightsafrica.org/angolanos-indignados-com-proposta-de-mudancas-na-lei-da-nacionalidade/.
11
Kick-off contribution. Unblocking access to citizenship in the global South: Should the process be decentralised?
European University Institute 3
Some states have recognised this reality. The best known case is that of Tanzania, which, in a stop-start process from 2007 to 2016, facilitated naturalisation of more than 160,000 Burundian refugees resident in the country since the 1970s.12 Guinea Bissau, Liberia and Mali have also naturalised long-term refugees; while Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya and Namibia have undertaken outreach to groups of long-term migrants to facilitate acquisition of citizenship. But these programmes are rare and incomplete, and generally depend on agitation and assistance from civil society groups or facilitation by UNHCR.
Decentralisation: a radical solution – or a legal framework for existing practice?
What would unblock the naturalisation route for normal purposes? I propose a radical solution: decentralisation. The right to grant nationality to those who have not acquired it at birth should be given to a sub-national unit of government, whether local or regional according to the constitution of each state.
This proposal is less radical than it sounds: in practice, it is often what already happens. In countries where civil registration systems are weak – birth registration is on average less than 50 percent of under-fives across the African continent, and registration of other civil status events much lower – states have put in place other systems to decide if a person is entitled to an identity document recognising citizenship as an adult. These vary from country to country, but generally involve the screening of applicants on the basis of witness testimony, including support from traditional or community leaders. In Nigeria and Ethiopia, these systems are deeply embedded in the identity management systems, in the form of a ‘certificate of indigeneity’ or ‘Kebele ID’ issued by local government authorities. In Kenya, applications for national identity cards made in border regions, or certain parts of Nairobi known to have large populations of foreign origin, are reviewed by ‘vetting committees’, made up of civil servants and security officials and selected community representatives. The procedure for late registration of birth by a court (jugement supplétif) and issue of nationality certificate in the francophone states also depends on witness testimony that the relevant facts that a person asserts are correct. In the end, all identity systems go back to this affirmation by others that a person is who they say they are, even if this is disguised in countries where civil registration has been close to 100 percent over several generations.
The problem with these procedures is that they can often be arbitrary. There are no laws adopted by parliaments establishing the rules for these local authority or vetting committee procedures; they are set up by ministerial regulation, departmental directive, or according to independent local understandings. Accordingly, the basis on which the decisions are made can vary greatly across one country, and have little rationality understood by informed observers. In Nigeria, for example, the question of ‘indigeneity’ has been a controversial and much debated one13, ever since the concept of ‘indigenous community’ as the basis of citizenship was introduced in the 1979 constitution. Despite numerous efforts, no progress has been made towards adopting a law to provide a set of rules to govern its interpretation. On the other hand, where procedures for nationality verification have a stronger legal foundation, as in the francophone tribunal-based procedure to issue a certificate of nationality, they are difficult to access. There are heavy costs in time and money to bring to a regional court perhaps half a dozen people needed as witnesses, who must spend hours or days queuing for a slot with the judge – only to be told that another witness or supporting document is also needed and they must all come back again.
The current procedures to verify identity are aimed at establishing who is already a citizen, rather than at granting citizenship. Yet the various committees or local government authorities may have little or no training in the law. Although this is, or should be, much less true of a procedure before a tribunal,
12
Markus, F. ‘Tanzania Grants Citizenship to 162,000 Burundian Refugees in Historic Decision.’ UNHCR, 17 Oct. 2014 https://www.unhcr.org/5441246f6.html. .
13
Gyang Mang, H. and D. Ehrhardt (2018), ‘The politics of paper: negotiating over and around indigeneship certification in Plateau State, Nigeria’, Canadian Journal of African Studies 52 (3): 331-347. (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00083968.2018.1546602)
Bronwen Manby
those giving supporting testimony almost certainly have no such training. What is therefore going on in these individual application procedures is a decision about whether a person is sufficiently accepted by the relevant community to be accorded the right to belong as if they were born a citizen (even if that was not in fact the case, because of the restrictive nature of the law). They are often in effect also decentralised systems of naturalisation.
Switzerland is the country with the currently most decentralised naturalisation system in law. Federal law specifies only general minimum requirements, and applicants for citizenship are naturalised at municipal level under cantonal laws: municipalities are thus the most important level for ordinary naturalisations. This system has been heavily criticised, on the grounds that it permits high levels of discrimination14 on the basis of race and religion, and that there is a lack of clearly established local regulations.15 At the more ludicrous end of such obstacles, a Dutch woman was twice denied naturalisation by her local village council because she complained about cow bells (she eventually won the argument).16 Until 2003 municipalities could decide on individual naturalisations through votes in a referendum, a procedure that was stopped by the Federal Supreme Court. There are clearly risks in going this route, and a well-articulated vision of what it means to be a citizen is needed. Yet even in theoretically centralised systems, such as France, a degree of local discretion is observed.17
Embracing multilevel citizenship
My proposal rests on the understanding that in states where central institutions have weak legitimacy and capacity, a form of multilevel citizenship18 is already in place, even where there is no distinct sub-polity recognised in law to have co-existent sovereignty with the national state. The procedures by which citizenship is already established thus need legal regulation to make the conditions transparent, their implementation more predictable, and their appeal possible. And they should include the explicit possibility of local naturalisation for those who are not currently citizens but whose credentials as community members are attested according to legally established rules. The proposal is not to add a local layer of approval to an application process that is finally authorised by the minister or president, a system that already exists in some countries; but that local decisions – overseen by courts – would be determinative of the national body of citizens.
My assumption is that distrust of naturalisation would reduce, and the numbers naturalised by such procedures would greatly increase. GLOBALCIT's recent forum on urban citizenship19 highlighted the
14
Hainmueller, J. and D. Hangartner (2013), ‘Who Gets a Swiss Passport? A Natural Experiment in Immigrant Discrimination’, American Political Science Review 107 (1): 159-187. (DOI:10.1017/S0003055412000494)
15
Helbling, Marc (2010), ‘Switzerland: Contentious Citizenship Attribution in a Federal State’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 36 (5): 793-809. (DOI: 10.1080/13691831003764334)
16
‘Dutch anti-cowbell campaigner finally handed Swiss citizenship’ Thelocal.ch, 28 Mar. 2018 https://www.thelocal.ch/20180328/dutch-anti-cowbell-campaigner-finally-handed-swiss-citizenship-nancy-holten. 17
Weil, P. (2002), Qu’est-ce qu’un Francais? Histoire de la Naitonalite Francaise depuis la Revolution, (Grasset). 18
Maas, W. (ed.) (2013), Multilevel Citizenship. University of Pennsylvania Press. 19
‘Cities vs States: Should urban citizenship be emancipated from nationality?’ Globalcit, 18 Feb. 2020, https://globalcit.eu/cities-vs-states-should-urban-citizenship-be-emancipated-from-nationality/.
Kick-off contribution. Unblocking access to citizenship in the global South: Should the process be decentralised?
European University Institute 5
possibilities for local citizenship to open up participation and membership in ways that national citizenship could not. According to data collected by Afrobarometer (Round 5 of their surveys), based on opinion polling in 29 African states, an average of 62 percent of Africans think a person should have the right to become a citizen based on a contribution through living and working in the country. In no state was there a majority against (though in several the split for and against was quite even).20
Of course, my assumption is also that the rules will be manipulated (just as the existing ones are), and that in places where conflict over land and resources are particularly acute there is a high level of risk that naturalisation procedures would be captured by only one side of such disputes. Protections against such abuses are needed; above all, transparent rules and low-cost access to independent adjudication mechanisms, including appeal to the normal courts. These protections are already needed but, in the absence of clear legal frameworks for the lowest level of citizenship administration, cannot effectively be provided.
Historically, the boundaries of membership in African states have been blurred by the many borders that cut through pre-colonial polities, and the reality that official identity documents have often not been necessary to operate as a member of society. But identification systems are in the process of radical change and reinforcement across the continent. The division between citizen and non-citizen is being made both more visible and more binary. Without a system to ease the path to naturalisation, to make the right to change nationality a reality, many Africans will find themselves newly stateless: excluded from citizenship where they live on the grounds that they are foreigners; but at the same unable to prove any connection to a country ‘of origin’.
I have focused on African states, where I have done most research. But my guess is that many of the problems will be similar in other regions of the global South. I hope for contributions that will tell us whether decentralising naturalisation might be a solution that allows post-colonial states to re-imagine their nationhood.
20
Unblocking access to citizenship in South America:
policy-makers, courts and other actors
Diego Acosta
*
In her kick-off, Bronwen Manby describes a problematic reality – the difficulty to naturalise in certain countries in the global South and the consequently low number of naturalisations – and advocates, bearing in mind the African context, a decentralisation through which local or regional authorities would have the right to grant nationality. Whilst I agree with the diagnosis, I beg to differ on the solution taking into account a different regional context, that of South America. The role of other actors such as courts, the Inter-American Commission and Court on Human Rights, UN Committees, academia and ombuds offices (Defensores del Pueblo) emerge as more important.
Ius soli in South America
In South America,1 ius soli has been the preferred route of access to nationality in all ten countries since independence in the early 19th century.2 Unconditional ius soli, whilst far from perfect in its implementation in some cases,3 continues to be the norm in all of them, with two exceptions. In both of these cases, courts and other actors have played a major role in mitigating the limits established in the law.
First, Chile does not apply ius soli if the parents are ‘in transit’ (transeúnte). The previous administrative practice also denied nationality to those born to parents in irregular situation. However, in numerous cases the Supreme Court has confirmed4 that parents residing in the country without a regular permit could not be considered as being ‘in transit’, thus their offspring were entitled to Chilean nationality.5 This cases were the result of pressure by UN Committees on the elimination of racial discrimination, on the rights of children and on migrant workers, as well as academia6. Second, Colombia removed unconditional ius soli already in 1886 and requires parents to be domiciled, thus excluding children of undocumented migrants. The arrival of 1.8 million Venezuelans since 2015, more than a half of whom were undocumented, led to approximately 25,000 children becoming stateless, their parents not being able to avail themselves of the right documents to register them as Venezuelans
* Professor of European and Migration law, University of Bristol.
1
This response includes as South America the following countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela. Guyana and Suriname are excluded due to their different colonial and legal tradition when it comes to nationality and citizenship. For more information see: Diego Acosta, The National versus the Foreigner in South America. 200 Years of Migration and Citizenship Law (CUP, 2018), notably chapters 2, 3, 5 and 6. 2 Acosta, D. (2017), ‘Open borders in the nineteenth century: constructing the national, the citizen and the foreigner in South
America’, Working Paper, EUI RSCAS, 2017/46, Global Governance Programme-282, GLOBALCIT. https://cadmus.eui.eu/handle/1814/48009.
3 ‘Born in the Americas: The Promise and Practice of Nationality Laws in Brazil, Chile, and Colombia’ Open Society Justice Initiative, Mar. 2017 https://www.justiceinitiative.org/uploads/8c4136e4-c25d-4255-9afd-d66d20e71da1/born-in-the-americas-20170323.pdf
4 ‘Revista Colecciones Jurídicas de la Corte Suprema: Migrantes’. Dirección de Estudios de la Corte Suprema, July 2019, available at https://www.slideshare.net/DireccindeEstudiosde/migrantes-revista-colecciones-jurdicas-de-la-corte-suprema. 5
Bertin, X. ‘Más de 2.500 hijos de migrantes en tránsito considerados apátridas tienen derecho a ser chilenos’. La Tercera, 25 Nov. 2016, https://www.latercera.com/noticia/mas-2-500-hijos-migrantes-transito-considerados-apatridas-tienen-derecho-chilenos/.
6 Lawson, D. and M. Rodriguez. (2017), ‘Addressing the risk of statelessness in Chile: From strategic litigation to #chilereconoce’, Statelessness Working Paper Series No. 2017/03, Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion.
Unblocking access to citizenship in South America: policy-makers, courts and other actors
European University Institute 7
through ius sanguinis. Faced with pressure from academia7 and a draft bill presented by the Ombudsman,8 the government adopted a provision in 2019 granting Colombian nationality to such children, a provision that was later expanded through a ruling by the Constitutional Tribunal.9
Naturalisation in South America
In South America, most nationality laws can be characterised as moderately open to naturalisation in comparative perspective. Residence periods for those willing to naturalise are relatively short, ranging from two years in Argentina and Peru, three in Bolivia, Ecuador and Paraguay, four in Brazil and five in Chile, Colombia and Uruguay (in this last case to access a status of legal citizenship that is not equivalent to nationality, since naturalisation stricto sensu does not exist in Uruguay); the only exception is Venezuela, which requires ten years. The historical origins of this trend can be traced back to the years following independence, when waiting periods before naturalisation were considerably shortened as a way to attract settlers. In Argentina, the 1869 law continues to regulate naturalisation. Its Supreme Court had clearly established in 2009 that the residence period required did not refer to any particular legal category, thus migrants in irregular situations could also apply for nationality after proving two years of dwelling in the territory. However, the government amended that interpretation in 2017 through a controversial decree so that legal residence is required now. Dual citizenship is accepted everywhere except in Paraguay. Countries also demand requirements which are also common in other jurisdictions, such as a lack of criminal convictions (e.g. in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Peru), an oath of loyalty (e.g. in Argentina, Colombia), civic knowledge including history, geography or constitutional law (e.g. in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay); language proficiency (e.g. in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay), good behaviour or morals (e.g. in Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay), not posing a danger to public interests or security (e.g. in Chile, Ecuador), as well as good health (e.g. in Brazil and Ecuador).
Despite what can be considered as conditions that are easy to fulfil on paper, the number of naturalisations – in countries where data is available – is extremely low. For example, in Uruguay, only 3770 obtained legal citizenship between 2006 and 2018. The number was 7800 in Chile (2006-14).10 Data for Peru show 13,254 naturalisations (2001-2017).11 Numbers are not higher in Colombia or Paraguay,12 with less than 220 (2010-11) in the former and 777 (1996-2013) in the latter. In Argentina, which has the largest number of non-nationals in the region with 2.2 million,13 an average of 5000 naturalised between 2015-18, amounting to only 0.2% of the total number.
7 Casetro Franco, A (ed.) (2019), ‘Venezuela migra: aspectos sensibles del exodo hacia Colombia’, Universidad Externado de Colombia, (Temas de derecho internacional público, no. 2).
8 ‘Defensoría radica proyecto de ley para nacionalizar a niños de padres venezolanos’. El Espectador, 8 Apr. 2019 https://www.elespectador.com/noticias/politica/defensoria-radica-proyecto-de-ley-para-nacionalizar-a-ninos-de-padres-venezolanos/.
9 Castro, A. ‘Three important lessons from the recent decision of the Colombian Constitutional Court.’ Globalcit, 19 Feb. 2020, https://globalcit.eu/three-important-lessons-from-the-recent-decision-of-the-colombian-constitutional-court/. 10
Fiscella, J.M. and P.I. Baeza, (2017), ‘The nationalization of foreign migrants: A social capitalization from associative participation and civic engagement’, Si Somos Americanos: Revista de Estudios Transfronterizos 17(2), 127-155. 11
‘Peru: Estadísticas de la Emigración Internacional de Peruanos e Inmigración de Extranjeros, 1990 – 2017’, Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas e Informática – INEI; Superintendencia Nacional de Migraciones – MIGRACIONES; Organización Internacional para las Migraciones – OIM; Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores – RREE, 2018 https://www.inei.gob.pe/media/MenuRecursivo/publicaciones_digitales/Est/Lib1549/libro.pdf.
12
Acosta, D. (2017). 13
‘Argentina - Inmigración 2019.’ Datosmacro.com, Siguenos En, 6 Feb. 2020, https://datosmacro.expansion.com/demografia/migracion/inmigracion/argentina
Diego Acosta
Discussion
What explains such strikingly low numbers? As diagnosed by Manby in the African case, discretion is an important factor. In contrast to the examples raised by Manby, however, corruption scandals are rare. The 2004 Venezuelan process can be considered an exception. Ahead of a revocation referendum against the then President Hugo Chavez, Venezuela regularised and naturalised between 350,000 and 450,000 non-nationals14 (although the number is highly contested) in a process of dubious legality. Naturalisation even constitutes an entitlement in two countries: Argentina and Chile. In Uruguay it is also an entitlement, but there foreigners cannot naturalise and can only obtain legal citizenship as opposed to full nationality. In all the rest, it represents a discretionary power exercised by different authorities, including the executive (e.g. Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru) or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (e.g. Colombia). In some cases, this discretion is used by a variety of actors (e.g. the police in Brazil) involved in the application process, thus leading to possible discrimination in practice.
Secondly, most immigration in South America is regional and in some cases, such as in Paraguay, this reaches 90% of the total.15 Regional integration processes, such as MERCOSUR and the Andean Community, have facilitated mobility, residence and access to rights for regional migrants thus possibly reducing incentives to naturalise. It is, however, striking to see the enormous appetite for naturalisation Latin Americans show in other parts of the world. Between 2010-2019, more than 654,000 South Americans naturalised in Spain16 through residence in the country. This does not include South Americans who might have naturalised in Spain through non-residency routes. For example, the largest number of the more than 150,000 applications that Spain has received from descendants of Sephardic Jews expelled in the late 15th century, for whom the country created a privileged restoration of citizenship, come from Latin America.17 Similarly, Italy has granted most naturalisations by ancestry in countries like Argentina and Brazil. This might have to do with what Yossi Harpaz has presented as the search for a compensatory citizenship.18
Third, the question arises whether the emigration of around 4.5 million Venezuelans in the last five years, mostly to other countries in South America,19 would lead to an increase in the number of naturalisations. Unfortunately, the temporary residence permits granted to Venezuelans in the two countries with the largest numbers, Colombia and Peru, do not provide paths to citizenship.20 This clear lack of political will is problematic. Paradoxically, access to citizenship for Venezuelans would offer a strong incentive for their return to Venezuela once the situation improves. In Argentina, out of the circa 200,000 Venezuelans regularly residing there, only 561 had naturalised between 2015 and 2019, despite the short residence period needed of 2 years and the toleration of dual citizenship.
14
Schwarz, T. (2014), ‘Regímenes de pertenencia nacional en Venezuela y la República Dominicana contemporáneas’, Tabula Rasa 20.
15
‘International Migration in the Americas: Fourth Report of the Continuous Reporting System on International Migration in the Americas (SICREMI)’, OAS and OECD, 2017.
16
‘Portal de Inmigración: Concesiones de nacionalidad española por residencia. Resultados.’ Ministerio De Inclusión,
Seguridad Social y Migraciones, Spain.
http://extranjeros.inclusion.gob.es/es/Estadisticas/operaciones/concesiones/index.html. 17
Cueto, J.C. ‘España y Los Judíos Sefardíes: Quién Se Beneficia De La Decisión De Ofrecer La Nacionalidad a Esta Comunidad.’ BBC News Mundo, 8 Oct. 2019, www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-internacional-49904014.
18
Harpaz, Y. (2019), ‘Compensatory citizenship: dual nationality as a strategy of global upward mobility’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 45(6): 897-916.
19
‘Coordination Platform.’ Situation Response for Venezuelans, data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/platform. 20
Unblocking access to citizenship in South America: policy-makers, courts and other actors
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Would decentralisation improve the situation? Whilst the former major of Bogotá advocated for the automatic granting of citizenship to Venezuelans in 2018,21 I cannot really see how decentralisation would offer a solution. Rather, the combination of mobilisation by some actors, such as the Ombudsman, together with further academic interest can lead to changes, as in the Colombian case mentioned earlier. For example, the ombudsman in Ecuador expressed its concerns with the government’s decision to deprive Julian Assange of its Ecuadorian citizenship,22 and the Peruvian Ombudsman participated before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the famous case affecting the deprivation of citizenship of business tycoon Baruch Ivcher.23 The Inter-American system of human rights protection is also crucial in this task.24 Academics need to lead that process and look deeper to unveil the mechanisms through which foreigners remain foreigners in South America and the reasons behind strikingly low naturalisation numbers in the region in comparative perspective. Unfortunately, with very few exceptions25, we lack research on this crucial issue. It could be argued that in countries with absolute ius soli, naturalisation remains less important. However, academics need to learn how naturalisation works in practice, how many years the individuals need to wait in reality before they access citizenship, as opposed to on paper, how many applications are rejected and why, what practices of discrimination occur in practice and on what grounds, and what sources of information are provided on the possibility to apply for nationality and the process. This could open a fascinating and collective line of research for the years to come.
21
‘Ciudadanía colombiana automática para los venezolanos, propone Peñalosa’. Semana.com, 25 Sept. 2018, https://www.semana.com/contenidos-editoriales/inclusion-los-otros-somos-todos/articulo/ciudadania-colombiana-automatica-para-los-venezolanos-propone-penalosa/584606/.
22
‘Defensoría del Pueblo expresa preocupación por la decisión del Estado ecuatoriano en el tema Assange’. El Comercio, 11 Apr. 2019 https://www.elcomercio.com/actualidad/defensoria-pueblo-ecuador-asilo-assange.html.
23
‘Ivcher-Bronstein Case (Baruch Ivcher Bronstein vs. Peru).’ Inter-American Court of Human Rights, 6 Feb. 2001 available at Refworld, https://www.refworld.org/cases,IACRTHR,44e496434.html.
24
‘CIDH saluda medidas adoptadas para garantizar el derecho a la nacionalidad y prevenir la apatridia en los países de la región’, Organisation of American States, 25 Feb. 2019, http://www.oas.org/es/cidh/prensa/comunicados/2019/042.asp. 25
Courtis, C. and A.O. Penchaszadeh (2015), ‘El (im)posible ciudadano extranjero. Ciudadanía y nacionalidad en Argentina’, Revista SAAP 9(2): 375-394; Blanchette, T.G. (2015), ‘“Almost a Brazilian” Gringos, Immigration, and Irregularity in Brazil’, in D. Acosta & A. Wiesbrock (eds.), Global Migration: Old Assumptions, New Dynamics, 167-194. Santa Barbara: Praeger.
More citizenship, more inequities? Lessons from localised U.S. naturalisation
Irene Bloemraad
*
In her call to localise naturalisation in the global South, Bronwen Manby embeds two contentions: first, that acquiring citizenship is an important goal, and second, that decentralising the process will increase naturalisation. She acknowledges a potential problem, namely the uneven application of the law across jurisdictions and, perhaps, also across groups of noncitizens. Such variability should worry anyone concerned about discrimination and the fair, neutral application of law. However, Manby concludes that current practice in Africa is already largely arbitrary. Further, current practice only provides a path to citizenship for, at best, a few hundred immigrants per year or, in some countries, to virtually no one. Faced with no real access to citizenship, Manby advocates a decentralised system.
Others can speak to the wisdom or practicality of her proposal on the African continent or to other regions of the global South, such as South America. I instead turn to the history of U.S. naturalisation and immigrants’ experiences in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. In this period, immigrants’ acquisition of citizenship occurred in precisely the localised fashion that Manby envisions. What lessons can we draw?
I use this history to evaluate whether decentralisation increased naturalisation (it did, for some), whether it led to significant local variation (it did, for many1), and who benefited (some Europeans, very few Mexicans2). Using decentralised naturalisation to increase citizenship comes at the possible price of generating real or perceived inequities.
Such variability must be weighed against the benefits of citizenship. These are modest but real in the global North, including protection from deportation, slight gains in jobs or income, and somewhat more political participation.3 But it is unclear how much they apply in the global South. The gains of naturalisation in advanced liberal democracies also accrue largely to migrants from the global South, not to those from politically and economically similar countries.
The dangers of decentralisation are likely most acute if localised variation in naturalisation comes to overlap with social group boundaries, be it by tribe, religion, caste, economic marginalization or other distinctions that then exacerbate and reify problematic group-based distinctions. If this happens, the effects on politics, economic incorporation, and the well-being of later generations could magnify harms to those excluded from citizenship. This trade-off must be faced head-on, requiring that any decentralisation plan is accompanied, at a minimum, with transparency in decision-making and monitoring of naturalisation trends.
* University of California, Berkeley. This commentary draws on prior research published as Irene Bloemraad and Reed Ueda
(2006), ‘Naturalisation and Nationality’ in Companion to American Immigration; Irene Bloemraad (2006), ‘Citizenship Lessons from the Past: The Contours of Immigrant Naturalisation in the Early Twentieth Century’, Social Science Quarterly; and Cybelle Fox and Irene Bloemraad (2015), ‘White by Law, Not in Practice: Explaining the Gulf in Citizenship Acquisition between Mexican and European Immigrants’, 1930, Social Forces.
1 Bloemraad, I., (2006), ‘Citizenship Lessons from the Past: The Contours of Immigrant Naturalization in the Early 20th
Century’, Social Science Quarterly 87(5): 927-953.
2 Fox, C. and I. Bloemraad, (2015), ‘Beyond “White by Law”: Explaining the Gulf in Citizenship Acquisition between Mexican and European Immigrants, 1930’, Social Forces 94(1): 181-207.
3 Bloemraad, I., (2017), ‘Does Citizenship Matter?’, In The Oxford Handbook of Citizenship edited by A. Shachar, R. Baubock, I. Bloemraad, M. Vink (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
More citizenship, more inequities? Lessons from localised U.S. naturalisation
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The little-known history of local naturalisation in the United States
The right to control naturalisation was one of the reasons given by those who signed the U.S. Declaration of Independence for renouncing their ties to Britain. Continuing the colonies’ practice of granting local citizenship, the early Articles of Confederation left citizenship to the individual states of the new union. This arrangement quickly proved unworkable, however, since it was not clear whether someone naturalised in one colony possessed reciprocal rights in another. The U.S. Constitution of 1787 thus empowered the federal government to “establish a uniform Rule of Naturalisation.”
One of the first acts of the federal U.S. Congress was passage of the Naturalisation Act of 1790. It infamously reserved naturalisation for “free white persons.” Only after the bloodbath of the Civil War was the law extended to “aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent” with passage of the Naturalisation Act of 1870. Mexican immigrants were also eligible for naturalisation since they were considered white by law. Unlike Europeans, however, Mexicans’ eligibility was a product of foreign relations and international treaties rather than a common acceptance of their whiteness. Asian immigrants were definitively deemed non-white and racially ineligible for citizenship by legislation and the courts. Racial restrictions on naturalisation were only excised from U.S. law in 1952.
The racist history of U.S. citizenship is relatively well-known; yet only few know about the localised and decentralised system of naturalisation that existed for over a century after passage of the 1790 Act.4 The act was a federal law, and thus applicable across the nation. However, its implementation and the process of granting citizenship was a local affair.5 Unlike today, there was no federal naturalisation bureaucracy, and applicants did not need to go to a federal court to petition for naturalisation. Rather, applications could be filed with any common law court of record in any state. Local officials were tasked with verifying length of residence, determining an applicant’s “good moral character,” collecting fees, and otherwise determining eligibility.
The dangers of decentralisation: inconsistent naturalisation
In reality, regardless of federal mandates, the ease of naturalisation depended on local judges, who enjoyed great latitude. Federal law dating from 1802 specified five years of residence, but verification procedures were often poor or non-existent. No formal language or civic knowledge requirements existed, yet some judges required them. One early twentieth-century analyst, John Palmer Gavit, concluded after reviewing thousands of naturalisation petitions and surveying over 400 judges that the process was “subject to the whims, theories, prejudices, and intellectual limitations of the individuals upon whom its enforcement devolves,” which meant that “there is hardly any other legal process in our governmental system in which [judges’] …prejudices [and] idiosyncrasies play so large a part.”6
Statistical modelling using individual-level data from the U.S. census shows that in 1900, an immigrant’s place of residence influenced naturalisation more than their birthplace, ability to speak English, or literacy.7 In some cases, judges’ antagonism toward immigrants – or particular groups of immigrants – made naturalisation difficult. In other cases, judges facilitated citizenship acquisition, especially when they had a close relationship to local political party machines that sought to convert new citizens into partisan voters.
4
Bloemraad, I. and R. Ueda, (2006), ‘Naturalisation and Nationality,’ In A Companion to American Immigration, edited by R. Ueda, (Blackwell Publishing).
5 Smith, M. “Overview of INS History to 1998.” USCIS, 6 Jan. 2020, www.uscis.gov/history-and-genealogy/our-history/overview-ins-history/overview-ins-history-1998.
6
Gavit J.P. (1922), Americans by Choice, New York and London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, available at Project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/files/60576/60576-h/60576-h.htm
7 Bloemraad, I. (2006), ‘Citizenship Lessons from the Past: The Contours of Immigrant Naturalization in the Early 20th
Irene Bloemraad
But perhaps more naturalisation, for some
Decentralisation thus produced significant variation, but did it increase naturalisation among immigrants? The answer is a qualified ‘yes’, but mostly for European and Canadian immigrants, and likely only for certain immigrant groups in specific political contexts.
We find some evidence of greater access to citizenship in the trajectory of naturalisation following passage of the 1906 Naturalization Act. With this law, the federal U.S. Congress sought to centralise administrative oversight of naturalisation in a Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization and to standardise the procedures for acquiring citizenship, including the creation of a uniform application form and adjudication procedure. Institutionalisation took years, but already by 1920, inter-state differences in naturalisation had narrowed significantly.
With national standardisation came reduced naturalisation. Drawing on micro-data from the 1900 and 1920 Census, the probability of naturalisation for an immigrant with ten years of residence fell from 49% to 20%. There are hints that those who were not literate were particularly hard hit, becoming less likely to acquire citizenship in 1920 as compared to 1900. Today, an immigrant’s place of residence is not a strong predictor of naturalisation in the United States, especially when compared to the impact of educational attainment, English ability, and length of residence.
Decentralised naturalisation did not, however, help Mexican immigrants to acquire citizenship.8 One analysis of naturalisation applications in South Texas9 between 1848 and 1906 found that only 1.4 percent of Mexican immigrants were successful in acquiring citizenship, compared to 44 percent of Europeans.
The implication of these historical U.S. experiences is that naturalisation might rise under Manby’s plan, but certain immigrant groups – defined by ethnic origin, language, religion, human capital or other attributes – will likely benefit more than others. Access to citizenship might increase, but so might inequities. Transparency and monitoring of naturalisation decisions by third-party groups might help mitigate some inequities. But because immigrant groups settle in different parts of a country, variation in decentralised decision-making could still create inter-group inequalities over time, even with limited discrimination in any particular locality.
Why did localities vary? The lure and dangers of political competition
Manby acknowledges that decentralisation will probably produce variation in local rates of naturalisation. This was the case in nineteenth century America. If variability is random, then differences might not produce resentment. But in reality, of course, there are patterns to why some places invite immigrants into citizenship while other places seek to exclude them, as well as who is welcomed into citizenship and who is excluded.
During the period of localised naturalisation in the United States, one determinant of civic welcome was the extent to which political parties were competitive in local elections and consequently sought to make voters out of immigrants.10 Political outreach could be benign – an invitation to participate in the American democratic process – but it could also be rife with corruption and graft as politicians hustled for supporters. Political agents would pay immigrants’ naturalisation fee, produce witnesses to attest to residency and moral character, or even offer bribes to immigrants or judges to swell the number of people who would cast a ballot for a particular candidate or party.
8 Fox, C. and I. Bloemraad, (2015), ‘Beyond “White by Law”: Explaining the Gulf in Citizenship Acquisition between Mexican and European Immigrants, 1930’, Social Forces 94(1): 181-207.
9
Menchaca, M. (2011), Naturalizing Mexican Immigrants: A Texas History, (University of Texas Press). 10
Schneider, D. (2011), Crossing Borders: Migration and Citizenship in the Twentieth-Century United States, (Harvard University Press).
More citizenship, more inequities? Lessons from localised U.S. naturalisation
European University Institute 13
Any proposal to decentralise naturalisation in the contemporary period must think carefully through the possible consequences for fair and free elections.
The local warmth of welcome
We can also imagine that local patterns of naturalisation varied based on the costs and benefits of citizenship in a particular place. Indeed, just as the process of naturalisation was decentralised, the advantages and drawbacks of citizenship varied across U.S. states in the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth century. In some places, (White, male) immigrants could vote even if they were not U.S. citizens.11 States also had diverse “alienage” laws, using citizenship or the intention to naturalise as grounds to give or deny professional licenses (for being a notary public, teacher or saloon owner, for example) or to own real estate or a business.
Perhaps surprisingly, among the ten U.S. states with the biggest foreign-born population in 1920, European immigrants were mostly like to be citizens in the three states with the fewest “citizens-only” restrictions. This implies that the “carrot” of an immigrant-friendly environment drove naturalisation more than the “stick” of restrictive alienage laws, although the story is not so clear when we look at the right to own property. The effect of decentralisation on naturalisation will likely depend not only on whether and how local officials facilitate citizenship access, but also on the local warmth of the welcome or possible benefits of citizenship.
Does citizenship matter?
This conclusion raises the larger question of why it is worth promoting access to citizenship in the first place. If a possible – even likely – consequence of decentralisation is variation in naturalisation, some of which may be experienced as inequities across place and groups, is greater access to citizenship for some worth the potential cost to fairness and equal treatment? Manby does not take on this question in depth. At a minimum, she suggests, her proposal might help some immigrants and, especially, their children avoid statelessness.
But how much does citizenship matter to the daily lives of most global South residents?12 In the contemporary United States, citizenship guarantees13 the right to territory and protection from deportation, the ability to travel with a highly regarded passport, broader rights in the judicial system, greater access to social benefits, eligibility for certain jobs or occupations barred to noncitizens, the ability to more easily sponsor immigrant parents or minor children to immigrate, greater access to educational loans and scholarships, and the ability to vote and run for office. There is also some evidence14 that, across Western democracies, holding citizenship status increases political and civic engagement (even in places that allow noncitizen voting), enhances national identification, and increases social integration.15 Acquiring citizenship also appears to provide an economic ‘premium’16 for
11
Hayduk, R. (2015), ‘Political Rights in the Age of Migration: Lessons from the United States’, Journal of International Migration and Integration 16: 99-118.
12
Manby, B. (2018), Citizenship in Africa: The Law of Belonging, Hart Publishing. 13
The National Academics of Sciences, Engineering, Medicine, ‘The Integration of Immigrants into American Society’, Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/21746.
14
Bloemraad, I. (2017), ‘Does Citizenship Matter?’ In The Oxford Handbook of Citizenship edited by A. Shachar, R. Baubock, I. Bloemraad, M. Vink (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
15
Hainmueller, J., D. Hangartner, and G. Pietrantuono, (2017), ‘Catalyst or Crown: Does Naturalization Promote the Long-Term Social Integration of Immigrants?’ American Political Science Review 111(2): 256-276.
16
‘Naturalisation: A Passport for the Better Integration of Immigrants?’ OECD, www.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration-health/naturalisation-a-passport-for-the-better-integration-of-immigrants_9789264099104-en.
Irene Bloemraad
naturalised immigrants, improving income, employment,17 and occupational prestige, although the wage premium seems to be modest, holding other personal attributes constant.
Turning again to the historical record in the United States, we also see hints that European immigrants’ naturalisation early in the twentieth century provided benefits to their children,18 even if the children’s own status was secure due to automatic birthright citizenship. When immigrant parents’ naturalised, this raised their occupational attainment, which in turn allowed their children to secure greater educational attainment and labour market success compared to the children of immigrants who did not acquire U.S. citizenship.
It is not clear whether such citizenship benefits – to the first or second generations – would also flow to those living in the global South, but knowing the range of possible benefits as weighed against the likely inequities should be a critical part of judging the trade-offs of any localised naturalisation scheme.
17
Peters, F., Maarten Vink, and Hans Schmeets, (2017), ‘Anticipating the citizenship premium: before and after effects of immigrant naturalisation on employment’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 44(7): 1051-1080.
18
Catron, P. (2019) ‘The citizenship advantage: immigrant socioeconomic attainment in the age of mass migration’, American Journal of Sociology 124(4).
15
Decentralise the procedure but not the law?
Cautionary lessons from Switzerland’s multilevel citizenship
Barbara von Ruette*
Switzerland is the textbook example of a decentralised nationality regime. Swiss citizenship has three levels – every citizen is a citizen not only of the national, federal state, but also of a canton and a municipality.1 The three levels are inherently tied, and citizenship can be acquired and lost only on all levels together. The three-level citizenship structure is reflected in the naturalisation system: both the substantive criteria for naturalisation as well as the procedures are decentralised.
Switzerland’s multilevel citizenship, hence, provides an excellent example to discuss possible implications and pitfalls of Bronwen Manby’s proposal to decentralise naturalisation. While I agree that effective access to citizenship is critical, I argue on the basis of the Swiss case that decentralisation of naturalisation procedures does not improve access to citizenship but remains highly discretionary and exclusionary, even in combination with transparent and universal naturalisation conditions.
As described by Irene Bloemraad for the United States, the Swiss model of citizenship too has historical reasons.2 The first constitution of the modern federal state of 18483 did not foresee an independent federal citizenship. Swiss citizenship was granted simply by virtue of being a citizen of one of the cantons. Only in 1874 was the federal state granted the competence to regulate automatic acquisition at birth and loss of citizenship as well as through facilitated naturalisation based on marriage or descent. Ordinary naturalisation, by contrast, remains a shared competence of cantons and the federal state.4
Today, the Federal Act on Swiss Citizenship5 establishes minimum requirements for acquisition of citizenship by way of ordinary naturalisation. A revision of the Citizenship Act in 2014 aimed at facilitating the complex three-level naturalisation procedure and at harmonising the naturalisation criteria.6 This aim was only partially achieved.7 The cantons still have extensive competences to set their own criteria for naturalisation, especially with regard to the substantive requirements, and go both beyond as well as below the requirements set at federal level when fleshing these out.8 The cantons can even grant further competencies to the municipalities to set their own requirements for acquisition of municipal citizenship. With 26 cantons and 2,255 municipalities this results in an extremely complex puzzle of naturalisation requirements and procedures.
* Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen.
1
Federal Constitution of the Swiss Confederation, 18 Apr. 1999, article 37, https://www.admin.ch/opc/en/classified-compilation/19995395/index.html#a37
2
Studer, B. et al. (2008), Das Schweizer Bürgerrecht: Erwerb, Verlust, Entzug von 1848 bis zur Gegenwart, Schulthess. 3
Bundesverfassung der Schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft, 12 Sept. 1848 (no longer in force). https://www.parlament.ch/centers/documents/de/verfassung-bundesblatt-1849.pdf
4
Federal Constitution of the Swiss Confederation, art. 38, https://www.admin.ch/opc/en/classified-compilation/19995395/index.html#a38
5
Federal Act of 20 June 2014 on Swiss Citizenship (Swiss Citizenship Act), https://www.admin.ch/opc/en/classified-compilation/20092990/index.html
6
Message of the Federal Council on the Revision of the Swiss Citizenship Act, Federal Gazette 2011 2825, 4 March 2011, https://www.admin.ch/opc/de/federal-gazette/2011/2825.pdf
7 von Rütte, B. (2017), ‘Das Neue Bürgerrechtsgesetz’, Anwaltsrevue 2017/5. 8
Federal Supreme Court, Judgment of 1 Oct. 2014, 1D_1/2014 (in German), https://www.bger.ch/ext/eurospider/live/de/php/aza/http/index.php?highlight_docid=aza%3A%2F%2F01-10-2014-1D_1-2014&lang=de&type=show_document&zoom=YES&.
